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Once in the waiting room, Ella and Laura burst through the automatic doors to discover a war zone. It was a Friday in August in Brooklyn, NYC, and therefore, anyone who was anyone had had some kind of accident or mental breakdown. Babies wailed; mothers screeched with impatience; drunk men howled at their friends; and toddlers zoomed across the floor, unsupervised.
In the corner, Will sat on a plastic chair with his face in his hands. His legs were stretched out on either side of his torso like a basketball player's. Ella’s heart shattered at the sight of him. This forty-three-year-old man was clearly broken with the news of their son. Ella wanted to hold him until the pain passed, just as he’d done with her countless times.
“Dad!” Laura got to him first. Will stood and hugged her with his powerful drummer’s arms. Laura shook against him and burrowed her head in his chest. “What happened?” she wailed, although it was already clear. Danny hadn’t been at Jason’s playing video games. He’d been at an apartment party with older guys who’d pushed him to drink far more than his seventeen-year-old body allowed.
“Have you heard anything?” Ella tucked a brunette strand behind her ear and gazed into Will’s eyes. He looked older and more tired than the last time she’d seen him on the day he’d moved out.
“Nothing,” Will said, his voice curt. He then eyed Laura and said, “I have to talk to your mom for a little while, okay? Why don’t you take my chair? We’ll just head over to that hallway.”
“Why can’t you talk here?” Laura demanded.
“We just can’t, sweetheart.” Will’s nostrils flared as Laura obeyed him and sat. “We’ll be right back.”
Ella followed Will blindly until they were out of sight of Laura. There, he turned on a heel and hissed, “What the hell happened tonight?”
Ella was suddenly terrified. He’d lost all sense of himself. “Will, I’m scared, too. Okay? Let’s not make a scene.”
“I thought you said the kids would be okay with you,” Will shot back under his breath. “I thought you said that you could handle it.”
“I can’t be there with him every single minute of the day!” Ella returned. “I can’t hold his hand as he goes from place to place! He’s seventeen.”
Will groaned and pressed his hands over his cheeks, which stretched them out ghoulishly. Ella now remembered the millions of silly fights they’d gotten into over the past year or two. It was so not “them.” She had no idea where the irritation had come from. One day, they’d woken up, and they hadn’t been that couple any longer. The love just hadn’t been enough.
“I’m just worried,” Will breathed.
Ella’s heart cracked at the edges. There was no way to tell yourself in the early days that being a mother would be the most painful experience in the world. Beautiful, but endlessly painful.
“He’s going to be okay,” Ella rasped, her throat tightening.
“How do you know?” Will countered.
Ella’s head swam with rage. But before she could respond, Laura appeared. Her eyes were tinged with red, and her cheeks were blotchy and shining with tears. She raced toward the two of them, her mother and father, and forced them into a group hug. For the slightest of moments, Will placed his hand over Ella’s. But in the blink of an eye, it was gone.
ChapterFour
“Oh my gosh. Dave Grohl was there? You’re kidding, Dad.” Laura leaned against the doorframe of the kitchen and chatted to her father on the phone. She seemed oddly nervous, with her foot propped up against the inside of the opposite ankle and her finger twirling her hair. Will had left on his first-ever tour without Ella about five days ago, yet had only bothered to call his children now. Probably, Laura felt like she had to prove something to him— that she was good enough to be missed.
Ella dried the last of the breakfast dishes and placed the plate gently in a stack with the others.Don’t put yourself through this, she told herself, as she’d recognized her own emotional patterns. When she grew resentful of Will, everything else in her world seemed dark and dreary. That said, she wasn’t entirely pleased that Will was allowed to just head off on tour with his brand-new band and hang out with Dave Grohl while she was left to pick up the pieces of their dead partnership and care for their children. Once upon a time, she’d been famous, too.
Ella left Laura in the kitchen and inspected the line of backpacks at the door, one for Ella, one for Laura, and one for Danny. That morning, they were headed to Nantucket Island for the opening party for Bernard Copperfield’s newest novel, which Julia had decided to use as a “Hail Mary” for her struggling Chicago-based publishing house. Due to the success of Bernard’s previous novel and his now-infamous reputation, pre-sales for the book,The Time He Lost,had reached insane numbers. Based on a recent phone conversation with Julia, she was terribly pleased. On the other hand, Bernard seemed not to care at all. “His moods shift so quickly. You never really know where his head is at. Sometimes, he’s garrulous and eager to eat dinner with Mom, Alana, and I. Other times, he stays in his room for weeks at a time.”
Much like his grandfather, Danny remained latched away in his room, blaring the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ “Maps.” Ella recognized the severity of the song choice. It was clear that Danny remained ill and depressed in the wake of the alcohol poisoning incident. The hospital stint had been two grueling weeks ago, and still, Danny struggled to look Ella in the eye. Very soon, Danny would start his senior year at his high school there in Brooklyn, and Ella’s stomach twisted with anxiety. Without Will there, she was unsure about how to wade through the terrors of handling a teenage boy with an alcohol problem.
Ella retreated to her bedroom to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything. Toothbrush, makeup, and other toiletries were all accounted for. In her flurry back out into the hallway, she glanced at the stack of paperwork on the bedroom desk— legal jargon that was supposed to separate Will and Ella in a very concrete way. There would be no more shared accounts or recognition from the government that they were a “unit.” The language of the paperwork was dense and alienating. Several times over the previous two weeks, just reading the first paragraphs had made her weep.
“Danny? You want to talk to Dad?” Laura called down the hallway.
Danny’s muffled, “No,” came back.
“You sure? He’s in Memphis with Dave Grohl.”
“I don’t give a crap about Dave Grohl,” Danny called back.
The corners of Ella’s lips curled into the smallest of smiles. She stepped into the hall and tapped at Danny’s door gently. “Hey, honey. You about ready to hit the road?”
Danny opened the door slowly to reveal all six feet of him, his shoulders broad yet bony from his weight loss and his cheeks sallow. Based on his appearance, he looked hungover from either drugs or alcohol. This, Ella knew, was not true, as he’d spent almost the entirety of the previous two weeks in that very room. Ella and Will hadn’t even “grounded” him. He’d simply known to ground himself.
“Um. Yeah.” Danny splayed his fingers through his black locks and blinked into the light of the hallway with an expression that reminded Ella painfully of Will back in the old days.
